Posted: 12th Jun, 2009 By: MarkJ
Independent broadband provider Zen Internet has just become the latest ISP to announce the introduction of faster services with download speeds of up to 20Mbps and upload speeds of up to 1Mbps at no extra cost for both new and existing customers this summer. The services will be based off elements of BT's new 21st Century Network (21CN) and ADSL2+ broadband technology (BT aims to cover 55% of homes and businesses by March 2010).
Zen will start moving existing residential and business customers over to the new services later this summer, as long as they are available in their area. The new services, which will be on a “
like for like” basis with current products, will not change in price but customers can, in most cases, expect to receive a higher speed. Zen has already started communicating the planned move to its customers.
"We have been working on this upgrade since late 2008. The final phase of tests and trials for these new faster services is due for completion this summer. We therefore fully expect to start moving existing customers over from late summer onwards and this will be done at no extra cost", said Andrew Saunders, Head of Product Management and Marketing, Zen Internet .
"Zen has always had a very clear proposition around our services. We are retaining our current monthly contracts and just want customers to enjoy the benefits of our new faster services at any time of the day, with no gimmicks or restrictions hidden in a fair use policy." added Saunders.
Any new customers joining Zen where the faster services are not yet available will be moved across as and when they are introduced. The faster services will be provided at the same price as Zen’s current services. Zen also states that it will not be introducing a traffic shaping policy, which some other ISPs have done to restrict bandwidth usage.
Typically the speed customers can expect to receive will depend on how far they are from their local BT exchange. Based on the results of their current trials, it is estimated that the average download speeds will be between 9Mbps and 13Mbps, though some trial users are already achieving over 20Mbps (the theoretical maximum of ADSL2+ is 24Mbps).
"Zen Internet was one of the first ISPs to embrace broadband technology in the UK and connected some of the earliest broadband circuits back in the summer of 2000. We have a mission to provide the best ISP service in the UK and so, over this summer, we are completing a major technology upgrade to our broadband services that will enable the introduction of faster 20Mbps services and bring the most significant changes for our customers since those pioneering days of 2000," said Saunders.
Investments in Zen's network will apparently include upgrades of the connections from its network to the BT local exchanges, as well as a significant increase in the capacity of its core network and the interconnections from Zen’s network into the rest of the Internet, which have been expanded and optimised for resiliency.